Sunday Gravy: The suddenly lovable Yankees and a few NFL predictions

Getting a chance to watch young players like Gary Sanchez flourish has turned the Yankees into a group of lovable underdogs according to Register columnist Chip Malafronte.

Getting a chance to watch young players like Gary Sanchez flourish has turned the Yankees into a group of lovable underdogs according to Register columnist Chip Malafronte.

Photo: The Associated Press File Photo

Photo: The Associated Press File Photo

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Getting a chance to watch young players like Gary Sanchez flourish has turned the Yankees into a group of lovable underdogs according to Register columnist Chip Malafronte.

Getting a chance to watch young players like Gary Sanchez flourish has turned the Yankees into a group of lovable underdogs according to Register columnist Chip Malafronte.

Photo: The Associated Press File Photo

Sunday Gravy: The suddenly lovable Yankees and a few NFL predictions

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The amount of feminine beauty products cluttering our bathroom sink is roughly on par with the yearly inventory at Macy’s. There are piles of various cosmetics as far as the eye can see. And yet somehow, my toothbrush is the only thing that ever gets accidentally knocked into the toilet.

• The Yankees are pretty much in the same position they were a year ago, fighting for a wild card spot with little hope of advancing beyond the division series. What’s refreshing about their current playoff push is how it’s being accomplished. They abandoned the old formula of importing high-priced, aging talent, instead tossing as much of that dead weight overboard and trading away proactive assets with an eye to the future.

Except the future is paying an immediate dividend, and in the process has converted the Evil Empire into, dare we say, a collection of lovable underdogs. It’s a Disney movie come to life.

• Some worthless predictions as we await the first NFL Sunday: Seattle beats Carolina to win the NFC; New England over Pittsburgh in the AFC. The Patriots beat the Seattle in the Super Bowl.

• The first few cries for Tom Coughlin begin tonight around 7:30 after the Giants lose to a team led by Dak Prescott. They completely turn on Ben McAdoo by week 4. But the NFC East is such a disaster they still win the division at 8-8.

• The Jets, thanks to some shrewd personnel decisions and competent coaching, should give the Patriots and Steelers a real run for their money and be among the elite teams in the AFC. No, seriously. I’m not joking or being sarcastic, here. They’ll be very good. Will you stop snickering, please?

• The most exciting college football player in Connecticut this fall just might be playing for Southern Connecticut State. And his name is “Speedy” Thomas. Through two games he’s averaging 46.4 yards per kickoff return, and the 246 he accumulated on Friday night came wasn’t far off of the Division II national record for a most single game.

• In preparation for his appearance at Yankee Stadium on Monday, when he’ll throw out the first pitch prior to the Yankees/Dodgers game, Quinnipiac hockey coach Rand Pecknold has been working on his throwing mechanics with the school’s retired baseball coach, Dan Gooley.

Pecknold won’t be unleashing the Cape Cod curve that Gooley perfected at Hillhouse in the 1960s. He just wanted take precautions against an epic misfire. Smart thinking. To err is human. But first-pitch blunders live forever on You Tube. Just ask 50 Cent.

• In signing Tim Tebow, the Mets will be markedly improved on 4th-and-goal situations.

• Aspiring professional celebrity and 32-year-old juvenile delinquent Ryan Lochte has been suspended from competitive swimming for 10 months. No doubt Lochte deserved punishment for embarrassing the IOC and USA Swimming, but doling out a suspension nearly twice as long as those organizations gave to Michael Phelps in 2014 for Phelps’ second arrest for drunk driving seems a little ridiculous.

Guess it’s not that difficult to make an example of a washed-up social pariah.

• Denver’s defensive strategy against Cam Newton on Thursday night was an NFL version of “Hack a Shaq.” Only the consequences of continually targeting an opposing quarterback’s head are a tad more dangerous than sore arms and missed free throws.

• Feel good sports story of the week was the California high school football team stopping to deliver orange roses — one from every player — to the cheerleader recently diagnosed with leukemia. Wonderful gesture.

• Peyton Manning may have retired, his booking agent certainly hasn’t. America’s top pitchman will continue to sell you magical sugar water, pizza-flavored cardboard and satellite television that doesn’t work when it rains or snows. To be fair, TV ads starring Peyton are usually pretty good the first 80 or 90 times. Seeing as that number typically covers only the first half of a network NFL game, they do become a bit grating.

• So Cam Newton spends down time on the sidelines flossing his teeth. The man does have a terrific smile. It’s also the best endorsement for dental hygiene by a professional athlete since former Quinnipiac and MLB reliever Turk Wendell brushed his teeth in the dugout after every inning.

• John O’Connor, the women’s golf coach at Quinnipiac the past seven years, was still a relatively new pilot on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Yet he could sense something was amiss almost immediately after his twin-engine plane departed a Bridgeport runway for Washington, D.C.

Navigating the skies over Manhattan, he realized why. Heavy smoke was billowing from the World Trade Center.

On his AM radio he heard initial reports of a small plane crashing into the tower. Soon, a blanket announcement instructed all aircraft to land immediately. O’Connor, still believing it was an accident, assumed the message was intended for larger planes and continued flying.

Within minutes he was contacted by an air-traffic controller with a strange request.

“They asked ‘What are your intentions?’” recalled O’Connor, at the time a general contractor flying himself to a business meeting. “I said my intentions are to fly to Maryland airport near Washington. They allowed me to proceed for five minutes before they came back and asked the same question. I told them again, and they said Washington air-traffic wouldn’t allow me to proceed. It was around the time the Pentagon was hit.”

O’Connor initially turned back toward Bridgeport, but was quickly rerouted to Atlantic City. He quickly came to understand the full scope of what occurred. Flying back to Bridgeport a week later, the reality was unmistakable. O’Connor spotted several F-14s on patrol and saw the remains of the Twin Towers, still smoldering.

“It was very disturbing,” O’Connor said. “You realize the country’s security will never the same, the economy will never the same. Everything’s changed, really. Fifteen years ago, I was a young father with two kids in junior high and very thankful to finally get home to my family.”

Chip Malafronte, the Register sports columnist, can be reached at cmalafronte@nhregister.com. Follow Chip on Twitter @ChipMalafronte.